But the key to the use of metaphor is the “is/is not” tension. Every metaphor is a bipolar extremist. A metaphor is true . . . and false. To say with the psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to say something both true (“the King of Love my shepherd is”) and not true (God is not a shepherd, and we are neither sheep nor dogs). Literalize the metaphor and you lose the metaphor. Of course, some metaphors are easier to literalize than others.
